LPL Financial CEO Dan Arnold.
LPL Financial had a 23% year-over-year jump in net income to $146 million for the quarter ended June 30, while earnings per share rose 32% over the year-ago period — topping analysts' expectations. Revenues grew 7% to $139 billion, slightly less than anticipated. The independent broker-dealer had net asset inflows of $4 billion in the quarter and $8.5 billion of recruited assets, bringing its trailing 12-month total to about $33 billion. Its total assets grew 7% year over year to $706 billion, while its advisor headcount is 16,161 — up 112 from last year but down 28 from the prior quarter.
Its purchase of Allen & Co., which has about 30 advisors working with $3 billion in assets, is set to end in the third quarter, about three months ahead of schedule; the group is joining its new independent-employee model.
Speaking with equity analysts late Thursday, executives outlined the role several new strategies and related programs are likely to play in the independent broker-dealer's growth trajectory.
The firm's "first strategic play," according to CEO and President Dan Arnold, entails adding affiliation channels. The IBD's new advisory oriented and independent employee models, he said, "more than double the size of our addressable market."
For the firm's advisory-oriented models, it aims to give advisors integrated custodial, advisory, brokerage and practice-level services "that make it easier for an advisor to enter and thrive in the independent channel," he explained, by giving them "more capabilities and lower prices" to differentiate their practices and boost their competitive standing.
The includes LPL's Advisor Sleeve program, announced in mid-June. According to Arnold, some 1,500 advisors have brought $600 million onto the service, which lets advisors run custom portfolios and use LPL for monitoring, rebalancing and tax management.
